Electric motors and stirring/cooling wort

I had been thinking about Jamil's wort cooling technique and about surface area for the last week. I love the temps he gets and the time he's getting them, but I don't want to buy a pump (even though I really really want one) and I don't want to clean the pump. So I've been thinking about other ways to increase the entire worts contact with the cold coils with out me leaning over the pot for 30 minutes stirring.

How about an electric motor sitting on top of a lid, with a hole drilled through? Under the lid, a pair of stirrers (a pair of spatulas or something of the sort) could have the wort in a constant whirl around and against the coils. I don't have much experience with small motors, but I'd think that a small fan would do the job.

Does anyone have any suggestions for where I could find a small motor? and the type that would be right for this job? I've looked at some from companies like emerson, but I really don't know much about them.

Wort-O-Matic: Carl's Electric HLT

Says he used a "Molon motor from Herbach."

Chuck up a paint stirrer in an electric drill. Mount the drill above your kettle with the stirrer hanging down into the wort. Rig the switch to "stir" at slow to medium speed.

In response to carl's wort o matic, 500 bux?!?! Yikes. I'm thinking a 30 dollar fan hooked up to a... paint stirrer, not a bad idea. I wonder if I can find one in stainless steel.

side note, if the search function on this site had the same capabilities of the "similar threads" box here at the bottom of the page, it'd probably be easier to find what your looking for. I feel like I find 3 threads with information I'm looking for, AFTER I post, every time.

Find an old electric ice cream machine.

I made my HLT stirrer out of a 150rpm AC continuous duty gear motor from McMaster Carr. It was $50. The price of my stainless prop,... no comment.

david_42 said:

Find an old electric ice cream machine.

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I got one at the thrift store for $2.50 I think. My first plans were for a mash stirrer, may be use on the HLT though to get consistent temps without recirculation. You may want a larger paddle with the ice cream motor than you would with a drill due to speed.

In response to carl's wort o matic, 500 bux?!?! Yikes.

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The price is (supposed to be) for the entire HLT and includes everything from a PID controller to an extension cord, but oddly enough doesn't include the price of the motor or prop.

Here is my ultra-cheap solution to more effective stirring. It isn't continuous, but it evens out my temps VERY quickly. This will become a manually operated steam wand along with my 16 qt. pressure canner. Working on some fittings and high-temp hose. May not be helpful, but it was incredibly cheap, just dow rods inside a pvc pipe, and copper plates shaped on a belt sander.

Cheers! Hope I didn't ghetto up this thread too much

By the time you get this made I would bet you will be right in the same price range as a march pump. The march can be used for a bunch of things during brewday and will make your life much easier. Cleaning is as easy as running your cleaning water with PBW or Oxy through it for a couple minutes. Easy as pie.

I was at home depot looking at paint mixer drill attachments, and I couldn't bite the bullet on anything particular. My brain has been trained to be sensitive about what touches the beer; whether it's food grade plastic, stainless steel, aluminum, brass, or, well that's it. I didn't really see anything that fit those guidelines.

basically, for this to work frugally, the attachment, something like this:

Amazon.com: Bon Tool 15-394-b0 Ribbon Drill Mixer, Diameter: 4", Shaft: 1/2" X 24": Home Improvement

or these jiffy mixers

Mixing Wands - Jiffy & Hansen

... has to be stainless steel or plastic and under 20 bux. I'm seeing a lot of zinc plated steel, nickle plated steel, and painted mixers that I'm not sold on using.

I ran into the same issue of not being able to find any paint mixers that were stainless or plastic when at Lowes today. Instead, I bought a 1/4" (or something close) aluminum rod (near the angle iron/threaded rod section at Lowes) and bent one end of it to a paddle sort of shape using pliers. It works well when connected to a cordless drill!

TommyBoy said:

I made my HLT stirrer out of a 150rpm AC continuous duty gear motor from McMaster Carr. It was $50. The price of my stainless prop,... no comment.

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I tell ya those SS chemical props were not cheap, I lost 8 of them of 5" diameter with 3 blade off my job site.
For home use they can be made out of stainless as my friend made his own for his DIY ROV project.

TommyBoy said:

I made my HLT stirrer out of a 150rpm AC continuous duty gear motor from McMaster Carr. It was $50. The price of my stainless prop,... no comment.

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Sorry to revive an old thread, but I've been thinking about making the same thing. Are you happy with the 150 rpms? I had original thought about 60 rpms would be a nice slow agitation (I'm not trying to aerate after all), but having no experience with building one of these, I wanted to see how yours was working out for you.

scone said:

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I've been thinking about making the same thing. Are you happy with the 150 rpms? I had original thought about 60 rpms would be a nice slow agitation (I'm not trying to aerate after all), but having no experience with building one of these, I wanted to see how yours was working out for you.

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The motor that is shown in "Carl's Electric HLT" on page one can be found here:
herbach.com 63 RPM motor
It is an inexpensive unit that does an excellent job. The prop that Carl uses was designed and built by me from brass sheet, fittings and a piece of hard copper tubing.

It works very well.

https://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?item=5-1257&catname=

I have an extra with a big plastic wheel attached if you want to buy it.

B

Thanks, actually I ended up buying one of these:

http://www.herbach.com/Merchant2/me...AR&Product_Code=TM94MTR2603&Category_Code=MTR

And an A/C fan to cool it. Now I just have to figure out how to make a cheap-o impeller.

http://www.herbach.com/Merchant2/me...AR&Product_Code=TM94MTR2603&Category_Code=MTR

I would be careful on you prop diameter build not alone pitch used your only dealing with 14 in/ounce of torque at 129 rpm's. I would be hesitant and feel more comfortable with 14 ft/lbs torque to start with to not be running the gearbox at it's maximum rating full time. JMO vs a possible future GB failure. The larger parallel shaft motors get pricy real quick.
I'm looking at a 24 VDC 1749 RPM 30 amp ball bearing disability motor for stair climbers, this on a PWM at 5 volts results in 190 rpm's at the 1/2" shaft you can not stop without a glove or it eats flesh. I have the full rpm range from almost zero to full speed all at high torque. A high quality motor. As I mentioned for grain mills in the past a 90 VDC treadmill motor of 1.5 to 3.0 HP constant speed with the LED window speed control allowing maximum torque. These are curbside finds with speed control.